The actor behind Michael in Grand Theft Auto V, Ned Luke, openly endorsed Lucia, the playable female protagonist, in the highly anticipated GTA 6.
As part of our IGN's GTFM video series, Luke was seen chatting with my colleague Akeem Lawanson. During the interview, Luke described the significance of Lucia as one of the two playable protagonists in GTA 6 while also addressing the claims that Rockstar has gone "woke" for adding her as one of the playable characters.
"Lucia's hard, man. In the trailer, she looked good. You get a lot of these clowns out here going, 'Rockstar's going woke, they're caving into the wokeness of the world,'" Luke said. "First of all, there's been other female protagonists in the past, but not in something as huge as this."
As Luke points out, it is a well-documented fact that a few games in the Grand Theft Auto series offered a female protagonist. Outside of the obvious one being the female custom character you can make in GTA Online, both Grand Theft Auto and the Game Boy Color (GBC) version of Grand Theft Auto II had at least one female protagonist in each game you could play as.
Yet, Luke's point of mentioning the significance of Lucia in the next installment is still significant. Beyond what has already been pointed out, since jumping into the third dimension, the Grand Theft Auto series has been a critical and commercial hit for Rockstar, with GTA 5 being a major success since its release in 2013.
GTA 6 is currently in development with a 2025 release window. Beyond the name of our two protagonists and the confirmation that it will be set in a fictionalized version of Florida called Leonida, Rockstar has yet to share more in-depth details. Until then, check out 99 details we discovered in the first GTA 6 trailer.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
